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Comment by yboris | Hacker News Reader

Consumers can also have a 100% reduction in methane production in cows by abstaining from purchasing cow products.

We have an ongoing tragedy of animal abuse, groundwater and air pollution, and various health problems -- all because of people's addiction to meat.

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My family raise one steer in our back yard. It feeds two families for a year. Do you consider this animal abuse? Do you consider it a source of groundwater or air pollution?

I'm genuinely curious and somewhat open to being persuaded. It's hard for me to see it, but there could be an argument for it.

Or perhaps you feel that those things are a product of industrial scale. If so, can you not conceive any solution that would involve less than 100% reduction?

Most of the ill effects come from industrial scale production, which (at least in the USA) probably covers 99% of production. Regarding your personal cow, it does produce (from quick googling) ~220 lbs of methane a year, which seems to trap ~85x as much heat as an equivalent amount of CO2 over a ~20 year timescale, or ~30x as much over a much longer timescale, so that's like releasing ~18700 lbs of CO2 each year in the short term. A gasoline powered car will produce about a pound of CO2 per mile driven, so you can think of your cow as being equivalent to having an extra car that drives 18.7k miles per year (or ~9.5k miles per family). Eating half a cow seems pretty close to driving an extra car.

Apples to oranges - a pasture raised cow doesn't produce as much methane because the "rumen flora" differs between a grain-based and a forage-based diet. The bacterial population is so different between the two foods that if you switch a cow's feed to grain too quickly, the ensuing bloating can be life threatening. The bacteria digesting the corn is what produces the most methane.

Unlike CO2, methane breaks down in the atmosphere so it's not an infinitely growing sink, it's a rolling window.

Brief research doesn't really appear to support that - grass fed cows seem to put on weight much slower, and therefore produce methane longer, and the methane of course degrades into CO2 (hence the 'effective' amount of CO2 over a given time period). But the differences between the two seem to be relatively small-ish (certainly 'different sized apples' rather than apples and oranges).

Does this take into account the CO2/energy used to harvest the grain and move it?

Methane is CH4. It doesn't degrade to CO2 so much as the relative ability to trap infrared radiation is given in proportion to what an equal number of CO2 molecules would absorb/trap. Similarly, other gasses like refrigerants are rated in Global Warming Potential (GWP) units based on 20 years of absorption of infrared.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential

They’re social animals though. Wouldn’t it be lonely?

So you do a thing that almost no consumers do? Interesting question for finding out philosophical underpinnings of someone’s beliefs/opinions, but at best tangential and at worst verging on sophistry when discussing practical matters. This is not an accusation, just an observation.

But to attempt an answer: for example, I have rescued pet cats. If I find some arts and crafts use for the plentiful fur I “acquire” when I groom them, no big deal. If I make a commercial enterprise out of this and seek to maximize my profits at the expense of their well-being, that’s bad. There are gradations in between that are bad as well — ones that can easily occur for backyard farm animals, where their welfare and enrichment are very low on the totem pole. Especially if you are slaughtering, which obviously places their welfare very low on the totem pole. I’m avoiding the environmental aspect because it’s inarguably increasing GHG emissions compared to what was originally suggested.

But again, irrelevant for arguments about ideal supermarket habits.

I was specifically contrasting the two to question whether there might be some point in the middle that avoids the downfalls but is still practical. Some balance that could be doable and acceptable.

The original proposal was to do something that almost no consumers do: eliminate beef consumption. I was not proposing to change consumer behaviour so much as producer behavior. Of course it would impact consumers significantly in the prices they pay.

I encourage people to try plant based "meat" substitutes. I have a vegan friend when encouraged me to try Impossible burger. I finally relented during the early days of the pandemic when I could not find ground beef one day at the store, and I have to say that I love it. I use it everywhere I'd have used ground beef (burgers, tacos, chili, etc). My cholesterol and blood sugar numbers have improved dramatically.

The only drawback I’d see is it’s ultra processed food, but it looks as though ftom your experience you experienced health improvements which outweigh Ann concern over ultra processing .

I looked up a comparison.[1] It seems that the only potential issue with an impossible burger is much more sodium. On the other hand, it actually contains fiber(3 grams).

Apparently, Impossible meat are fortified with micronutrient as well.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the problem with ultra processed food is not the processing per se, but the poor nutritional profiles.

1. https://www.cnet.com/health/nutrition/is-the-impossible-burg...

I wanted to find some views on the the impossible/beyond GMO meat substitutes vs organic, grass-fed, which many contend is the gold standard for healthy meat, not regular feedlot / grain raised beef.

Found a number of different perspectives [1], [2], [3] [4] [5]

Most alarming was the presence of GMO, and soy & glyphosate connection alleged by testing from Moms Across America [6] found in both varieties (They are anti-GMO and anti-vaxx in the pre-covid term, using the original vaccine defintion). A vegan response by The Reasoned Vegan to these allegations and testing can be found at [7] which raised questions about the overblown testing hyperbole by Moms Across America. Consequently, I don't have a strong opinion on the veracity of the testing.

However, given my biases towards organic, grass-fed and away from both soy, GMO, and feedlot/grain cattle, the Chiropractor Dr. Pompa best captured a nuanced view with which I concur. [8] I say this because I've known many vegans, and the one I dated expressed concerns around the negative implications of a heavy soy diet that led to her to cut out all soy, and head more towards a raw food diet.

[1] https://blessingfalls.com/2019/08/14/plant-based-impossible-...

[2] https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/lab-produced-mea...

[3] https://www.eatthis.com/news-impossible-meat-ingredient-may-...

[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanabandoim/2019/12/20/what-the...

[5] https://www.gmoscience.org/2019/06/25/rat-feeding-studies-su...

[6] https://www.momsacrossamerica.com/gmo_impossible_burger_posi...

[7] https://thereasonedvegan.com/2019/07/24/lies-about-roundup-i...

[8] https://drpompa.com/cellular-detox/meat-substitute-burgers-a...

Do any of these plant based meat substitutes have the same macro and micro nutrient profiles as the real thing, or are they mainly comprised of cheap carbs?

I'd be willing to give it a go for a few things, like burgers, but only if nutritionally they are close to like for like. (there is also a medical reason behind this for me personally, as I have reactive hypoglycemia and avoid all but the smallest carb intake).

I'll also add, our family doesn't actually eat much red meat - it's more of a treat, with chicken and pork far more common at our table than beef or lamb. Partly for health reasons, partly for cost reasons.

If you have medical reasons to eat meat, IMO you shouldn’t be experimenting with new foods unless your doctor/nutritionist okays it. Ie I feel like you may not be the target audience of people who can give up meat.

Generally they are very high in protein, have a decent amount of good fats (normally have much less omega-6 than red meats) and have low carb content. Beyond Meat, for example, is my go-to substitute. I get their ground stuff in a pack and add more spices and make patties (though I'm a huge fan of it as is when eating out).

The newer ones (Beyond, Impossible) are a lot closer nutritionally to beef than the older style of veggie burgers that were mostly bean-based in my experience. Those could still be pretty good for what they were, but not really comparable to beef.

Not sure how much you eat of it. But generally processed foods are not that good for you. I know they add and additive to make it taste like it has serum from blood. I remember there being media reports and controversy over the safety of it. I tried making a meatless burger, and found adding almond flower goes a long way to make it taste great.

One of the brands uses a generically engineered yeast to create a plant heme with a gene spliced in from soy. It's GMO but seems safe (its not like a round up ready GMO). I think these engineered meat substitutes may not be as healthy as a whole food plant based diet -- but I find it hard to believe they are less healthy or have a higher environmental impact that the meat they replace.

Those are usually not "meat" substitutes but "ground meat" substitutes. I personally don't consume much ground meat, so they are a bit useless for me unfortunately.

It's hit and miss. I've tried one premier producer's "vegan minced meat" in Germany (Wiesenhof) and one supermarket's "vegan minced meat".

They look okay, but they don't brown in the pan and worst of all, they smell very very foul. You open the packaging and want to immediately put in in the garbage bin.

Taste is okay-ish, if boring and bland, but the smell disqualifies it.

I understand there are brands that don't have that problem (or less of it), but after two disasters I'm currently eating real meat when I want some, but try to limit it.

Better an honest vegan/vegetarian substitute than a "it has to look like meat, no matter what" substitute.

Soy shreds can be a good substitute for some uses of minced meat, for example.

The 2 beef analogs here in the us are much better. Both brown in the pan.

Of the 2 (Impossible and Beyond), the visual cooking profile is far better on Impossible. Their fake blood leads to the expected color change. Beyond starts out kind of brown, and its harder to tell when what stage of done-ness it is at.

Beyond feels more like meat, in terms of the fat. Impossible tends to stick because its not fatty enough, but Beyond feels like a "real" burger in that respect.

Of the 2, I like the taste of Impossible more. Seems much closer to real beef.

i tried (ed: strike impossible) beyond burgers recently. they were... ok. but i did notice that i felt extremely sluggish after eating them. (like having to lay down)

the thickness of the oil exuded onto the griddle and the difficulty i had cleaning it off was a bit frightening as well... but i don't prepare meat so maybe the real deal is worse?

If you want to eat a vegetable patty, why does it have to be a fake meat burger? Why can't you enjoy a falafel?

More to the point, if you want to stop eating meat, why do you have to eat pretend-meat? If you're cutting out a major food group from your diet you're already making a huge commitment in time and effort to eat in a certain way while not missing out on nutrients (so no excuses about how it's simpler to eat fake meat). So why not spend this time and effort to learn to cook tasty, delicious foods, without meat?

Why not spend this time and effort to learn to cook the many traditional dishes of the many world cuisines that are majority vegetarian or vegan, that teem with dishes that are absolutely heavenly, without any animal products in them? Learn to cook Indian, or Mediterranean, or African, or Thai. Learn to cook with olive oil instead of butter, learn to cook succulent, decadent aubergine casseroles and succulent legume dishes. Learn to cook! And don't leave your nutrition to the same old actors in the same old food industry that is destroying the environment and abusing animals with industrial beef (and pig, and chicken) production.

Remember that the biggest investors in meat substitutes are... giant meat and dairy conglomerates. Check out this article:

https://www.just-food.com/features/eyeing-alternatives-meat-...

Recognise any names?

> My cholesterol and blood sugar numbers have improved dramatically.

That’s a big claim. Most meat substitutes are ultra-processed food with lots of carbs and a poorer nutritional profile. Did you make other diet or lifestyle changes? Red meat should not impact blood sugars much.

Changing culture in terms of food is a hard problem and one which would have a large range of benefits. Any country that has environmental issues from overpopulated or invasive species could benefit greatly if people hunted an ate that animal, but since they aren't part of the culture people don't and allow overpopulated or invasive species to continue being a problem. People are addicted to the cultural food that is popular in their local area.

We see the same issue in the cultivating of mono-culture plants. Instead of using a wide range of different plants and land usage we instead see a overuse of the same plants being force fed artificial fertilizers in order to keep production high, with much of it ending up in the water creating eutrophication. This is a primary reason why a whole ocean, the Baltic sea, is turning into an underwater desert with a lack of oxygen so great that not even many bacterials like to live there. Artificial fertilizers has destroyed more way more land than nuclear fission and nuclear bombs has together.

If we could change peoples culture in terms in what they eat we could not only have a 100% reduction in methane, but also fix the water pollution, biodiversity, usage of fossil fuels in the food chain, decrease land usage, fix overpopulation and remove invasive species, and feed even more people than we do today. It would also likely taste quite well, especially since taste is heavily influenced by culture.

Sure, in Texas a lot of us hunt and eat wild hogs as they're a nuisance. Javelina are native but can be a pest sometimes, so we eat them too (good in sausage).

Wild hogs tend to be part of the culture in most areas that I know has them. A useful sign for this is that such meat is generally more expensive to buy than beef, which illustrate the value that the culture puts on it as food.

In contrast one can look at areas which has an overpopulation of seals. People don't eat the meat and the most common use is to generate oil, which is also not very useful in modern days. As such hunters are not very interested to spend time on it and overpopulation is allowed to continue even if it has a known negative impact on bio diversity in an local area.

If one goes into the area of eutrophication, over population of non-cultural acceptable fish is very common. When government create initiatives to address the issue, the caught fish (many many tons of fish) get either turned into bio fuel or animal feed if the cost of transportation allows it. Hard to find a bigger waste of food than that, and it is purely a matter of culture.

Or, you could stop buying cheap, garbage meat that sometimes causes the problems you describe. Buy from a food coop, research the farm that supplies the meat. If you have the luxury to make informed choices, do that.

Of course, good luck getting the poor or working class to do any of those things. They simply want cheap, appetizing calories.

I agree, it's worth it if you have the means. But looking as to why people are resorting to the cheapest most inhumane options is the root of the problem. I'm sure if everyone could afford premium, well sourced meat then the problem would be reduced, but the issue is that the poor and working class have been put into the position they are in and will choose the cheaper route out of necessity and where there is necessity, there is a market and someone willing to capitalize on it.

It isn't just out of necessity. We don't really have much of a hunger problem in the US or most of the Western world.

We need to stop approaching problems by trying to force people to change their habits and preferences. That isn't going to happen.

Also, regardless of the arguments and hand waving from vegetarians, vegans, PETA, etc. we should accept that the vast majority of people are meant to and will always choose to eat meat as part of their diet.

If you want to get people off of conventionally produced meat you need something that normal people actually consider to be appetizing. If fact, it would be even better if they didn't realize any changes were made. The replacement for meat that has any chance of succeeding is ...meat.

Lab grown meat is the only solution with any chance of mass adoption. We can control the inputs, create something more appetizing, cheaper and maybe even healthier. It checks all the boxes vs. some unholy concoction of super processed ingredients marketed as a "meat substitute".

Smoking was drastically reduced in the US after a public health push.

Nice try. Eating high quality meat is absolutely NOT a public health concern.

Man, after reading some of these comments I realize how lucky I am to live in a part of the world where we push back very hard when the shrieking, alarmist minority try to force their preferences down the throats of others.

It doesn't make sense to say that people have an "addiction to meat". We eat meat because it's a very nutritious food. We need to eat food to survive, to live, and to thrive.

If you 're looking for an addiction that harms the environment, then look no further than right in front of your eyes. Right now, you are probably looking at the screen of a smart phone that you will most likely throw away for a new one before the end of the year. You don't need a new phone every year, nor do the many millions of people who buy a new one each year, and yet so they do.

https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2018/12/11/right-to-repair-...

On a similar line of reasoning: 65% of Americans are obese or overweight. We can make significant progress toward reducing all sorts of environmental harm if people simple didn’t eat more food than they needed.

The obesity is most likely due to unhealthy carbs than meat. Eating grilled meat and salads will rarely get you obese.

Yes, but there's still a lot of pollution associated with it: https://www.nature.com/articles/ijo2011151

We should stop subsidizing corn production.

Yeah, I'm good. You go ahead but we're having a large steak barbecue tonight. Bought like 20 lbs of Ribeye and 10 lbs of chicken.

Everybody gangsta 'till the climate changes.

The world average temp has warmed .9°C since 1880.

"I'm only going 20 miles an hour", said the teenager slamming on the gas.

The individual punishment for anyone alive today will basically be nothing even in the worst cases, so while I agree with you, that argument doesn’t really work.

Heart disease is the number one killer in the US currently. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929#heart-disea...

Which can be reversed by eating a plant based diet. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5466936/

If not for the planet, then for your health.

Yeah, because eating meat leads to heart disease. Oh wait, I heard those people also drank water!

Already we have witnessed increased frequency of extreme weather events. And the thing about positive feedback loops is that they accelerate.

This is getting downvoted because it's snarky, but look, barbecue is a cultural staple. The climate/PETA/imitation beef proponents are just priming to pump on the Virtue-Signaling-Politicization-Industrial complex, which will inevitably transform the cheeseburger into a political statement.

The last thing we need is to turn cheeseburgers into a political statement.

You want to make real progress?

Don't pick fights with hourislate's barbecue--it sounds like a great time.

At least in the US, there's no chance of convincing more than a tiny minority of people to give up cheeseburgers and barbecue.

But on the other hand, if you promote non-meat dishes from around the world (falafel, shakshuka, black bean tacos, pastas, you get the idea) it's entirely possible for the average person who eats meat every day to switch for a few meals per week, whether they're motivated by climate, health, or just really liking tacos.

And take a hard look at restaurant portion sizes. In a lot of cases they've doubled since the 1980's.

It's easy to imagine this as a 25% reduction in meat usage, without picking a losing battle against backyard barbecues.

Even encouraging people to reduce beef consumption in favor of pork or chicken would have a pretty significant impact, and that's a lot less drastic of a lifestyle change than going fully vegan. Although from an animal welfare perspective it might not be desirable - a lot more chickens need to suffer to produce the same amount of meat as one cow for instance.

I don't 100% agree on how there's no chance of convincing people to give up cheeseburgers and BBQs. Sure, they're a cultural staple, but smoking was a cultural staple in France and yet the French have basically given up on smoking, because deep down inside they're sensible people (despite being pig-headed Gauls, at the same time).

What I find hard to understand is this: if you want to eat meat, why would you choose to eat a meat substitute? If you don't want to eat meat, why would you choose to eat a meat substitute?

How many people are there that really want to eat fake meat? Or fake anything, for that matter?

Nice!

I wonder, from a cows point of view, if being eliminated as a species is preferable to being eaten one at a time at some point in their life cycle.

Because this appears to be advocating for genocide. Or bovinecide (is that the right word)?

<Edit>Apparently this is being taken as an argument for meat eating. It's not, I suspect we will lay off eating animal flesh as a species fairly soon. Just a theoretical question. Something to think about. Because simple "everyone should just XXX!" often have wider implications.

Wouldn't be the first time, nobody remembers the great horse genocide of 1908 either.

Equicide? At least people still kept some horses around for recreational riding etc. What will happen to cows?

Wildlife now only makes up 5% of the biomass of mammals on planet earth. Where is the outcry for the thousands of species that go extinct. https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/17788/how-muc...

Why don't people give up the meat until this has all been figured out?

It's so sad that even now people misunderstand the concerns of most people advocating reducing (or eliminating) meat from everyone's diet.

In the grand scheme of things, "being eaten" (that is getting killed prematurely) isn't as great a problem as the severe abuse animals undergo before they are killed. If there was a choice to make, I'd rather never exist, than to be brought into existence on a factory farm, confined, abused, rape-inseminated, have my children be taken away, be hauled by a tractor because I can no longer stand up, etc.

Please watch "Earthlings" to better understand the way humans treat animals: http://www.nationearth.com

In general, I'm confused by the counter-factual ethics required to work this out. For example, if we stop eating meat and dairy, then we would have no incentive to raise cattle. And without that incentive, cattle populations would drop dramatically; they would be limited to special preserves or zoos, or very marginal land. The species might not even survive. We don't have a stellar record of keeping large nuisance animals around if they have no economic value to us. It's not even clear (to me) that domestic cows are capable of surviving in the wild. So, in its most extreme form, the question posed is it more ethical to continue eating cattle and sustaining the species, or abstaining and letting the species go extinct? I don't know.

It'll take a couple of generations. Starting raising your kids on only Soylent Green type modern foods, and no meats; then, they'll grow up to find real meat disgusting.

Or the first time they have real meat, they actually enjoy it. Similar to all of those parents that regulate their kid's sugar content by not allowing sodas/candy/etc. Once they go to a friend's house or school and get a taste, they do not spit it out in disgust.

Meat is rather different. Just about no kid in America would want to eat a dog. And there's nothing significantly different between a dog and a pig, other than our cultural attitudes towards them.

As disgusting as I've been raised to find the idea, I suspect GP's point might hold have a grain of truth to dog meat, too. Some cultures eat dog -- I suspect if I ate dog meat, especially if I didn't know it was dog meat, I'd probably find it an okay meat.

(that said, I don't believe the physiology of domestic dogs really lends itself to "good meat", certainly not as efficient as domestic pigs, so raising dogs as food doesn't really make sense)

I wonder if there is calculations where dogs would fall on axis of chicken, pork and beef. Probably around pork, but which side and what sort of diets would be allowable.

A dog, being carnivorous, is further up the food chain than a pig, so will have more accumulated toxins.

Pigs are omnivores.

Congratulations, you posted something that appears to rebut my post but doesn't actually contradict anything I said.

I think that is just because we haven't served it to them. Serve it a few years and then tell what it is. Could solve that issue. Also I wonder how well decent breed of dog compares to beef, chicken and pork from ecological and economic perspective.

Only animals I'm against eating is hominids like apes, monkeys and humans. And that is only because of pathogens.

I have a friend who was raised Hindu but is himself lapsed. He has trouble eating beef, it upsets his digestive system.

Funny enough, this happened to me, I was raised without meat as a toddler very young child, tofu dogs, seitan, the whole nine yards. My parents from the Bay Area were militant about it...until I was about 5 at a family friends bbq, I had bacon for the first time, and as my dad tells it, that basically ended the whole family's vegetarianism it was so good. We all eat meat till this day... so maybe there is something instinctual about it.

Or fruit and vegetables. The alternative to meat isn't Soylent Green, but of course you're just a troll you don't want to debate facts.

Technically, Soylent Green was made of people (the plot of the movie). The premise of it though was Soylent (Blue, Yellow,...) foods were (supposed to have been) made from vegetable and seaweed protein -- which is not so much science fiction anymore w.r.t. Beyond Meat and other such products.

This is the same logic those who say we should end teen pregnancy by teaching abstinence use and we all know how that works out.

It’s also a huge coordination problem. Just casually get 300 million people to be on the same page and make a collective action against their own personal interest where there is no punishment for noncompliance, no feedback mechanism for rewards, and no guarantee it will have any effect.

When the expected outcome is “you deny yourself pleasures you want and nothing changes” it’s pretty darn rational to just not bother.

> 300 million

Add Argentina’s population of 45 million to that. And then go ask Pakistanis how they would feel about a “don’t eat beef” law imposed on them.

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